The Jester
by Bob DeFrank
Summary: Yuuzhan Vong fic, Shimrra, Nen Yim and Onimi feature


The Jester  
  
(I'm not making any money off this and I don't own Star Wars)  
  
Spoilers - Edge of Victory I and II, Star by Star  
  
WARNING  
  
The end contains a MAJOR theory for upcoming NJO books. I   
may be wrong, but I don't think I am.  
  
Shortly before Star by Star  
  
The Noghri did not struggle against the blorash jelly   
restraints when he saw Nen Yim enter the chamber. By now the   
prisoner knew he could not win free through simple strength. He   
the still, deadly patience of a born predator he followed the shaper   
with onyx-black eyes, watching for the slightest lapse of   
precaution on the part of his keepers. Given a chance, even a fifth   
of a chance, he would slip his bonds and kill his tormentor with   
nothing but his hands and teeth.  
  
He might as well have been a baby ngdin for all Nen Yim's   
reaction. She was aware of the Noghris' capabilities, but she also   
knew the strength of the jelly restraints. There was no way the   
alien could possibly get loose, so what was there to be afraid of?   
Nen Yim extended an extracting needle from one finger of her   
master hand and slid it into the Noghri's arm, careful to keep the   
hand well away from the prisoner's mouth. She nodded to herself   
as the eight-fingered hand drew in blood, then turned and walked   
out the door, leaving the Noghri to try his glares on the four living   
walls.  
  
Suung Aruh was waiting for her outside, along with the   
Maa'ju Haar who guarded the door. The newly-made adept   
genuflected with his headdress when he saw Nen Yim. "Master,   
Col Rammok's team has attained successful results with their   
experiments," he could barely keep the grin from his face, "he   
requests your attention."  
  
"As do five other research groups." Nen Yim turned her   
maa'its to her master's hand, an excretory orifice in the palm   
opened and two small capsules spilled out into her normal hand.   
She gave them to Suung Aruh. "I need this sample analyzed. We   
may need to apply the Protocol of Mezhan to the gene pattern."   
She named one of the shaping methods she herself had devised.  
  
Suung Aruh's eyes flashed with excitement. "Are we close,   
Master, if I may ask?" Nen Yim considered reprimanding the   
adept, such a display of emotion was not worthy of a shaper, but   
decided against it. Some cautious optimism was not unwarranted   
at this point.  
  
"I believe so." She answered, leading their way down the   
coral hallway of her damutek. They saw several Maa'ju Haar   
along the way, stationed at various doorways, ready to slay any   
infidel prisoner who might get loose within the damutek.   
Normally, a shaper compound had no garrison, but Master Nen   
Yim recognized the need for the guards: there were three Jeedai   
imprisoned here, and even unarmed, bound hand and foot and   
surrounded by ysalmari-laden walking trees, Nen Yim was taking   
no chances with them. She remembered well the damage Anakin   
Solo had wrought when let loose in a damutek.  
  
The Maa'ju Haar didn't offer either greeting or salute as the   
two shapers passed, their blind faces were as impassive as carved   
stone and they stood with predatory alertness that made the Noghri   
look undisciplined and awkward by comparison. That was all to   
be expected: the Maa'ju Haar, the Eyeless Watchers, were lord   
Shimrra's personal guard.  
  
They had made Nen Yim uneasy during her first days in   
the supreme overlord's service. Now she supposed she was used to   
them, though she would never be able to ignore their presence.   
The Eyeless Watchers were taller than most warriors, armored in   
jet-black vonduun armor, but though they had the scars and   
augmentations of warriors the Maa'ju Haar boasted no tattoos   
detailing their families and lineages. They had no red whorls to   
indicate battles fought, no symbols that denoted great deeds, the   
Haar had only a single mark: the symbol of lord Shimrra's House,   
branded on their foreheads.  
  
They differed from the normal rank-and-file warriors in   
one other way, in the source of their name. None of the Maa'ju   
Haar had no eyes, so they could never look upon the supreme   
overlord. Instead, they had been implanted with sensory organs   
that could hear a particular methcham forceps working amid the   
roar of a processing maw luur, that could detect sniff out a trail   
five cycles cold and 'see' body heat and nonvisible light.  
  
They were more alike than sacred twins. The Eyeless   
Weren't creche born, they sprang full-grown from cloning vats,   
their genetic template honed by master shapers and their minds   
sculpted by Qah cells. They owed allegiance to no domain or   
caste and had no lives apart from Shimrra's will. The shapers were   
constantly adding to the genetic pattern of each generation with the   
DNA of the greatest warriors of the time. Doubtless Tsavong Lah   
had donated a blood sample for their shaping, it was accounted a   
great honor for a warrior's genes to be included in the makeup of   
the supreme overlord's bodyguards.  
  
Nen Yim supposed that might be part of why they made her   
uneasy: she occasionally wondered if the new brood had some of   
Vua Rapuung in them.  
  
"I'll speak to Col Rammok as soon as I'm able," she   
continued as they reached the laboratory. "I want to begin   
applying this protocol immediately. If it is successful, we may   
receive approval to grow our first specimen." She was interested   
in seeing how her shaped Noghri would fare against the original in   
a field test. Not to mention against Jeedai, though she couldn't   
afford to risk any of her three subjects. Captive Jeedai were   
scarce: the voxyn might be able to track them, but they were more   
interested in killing Jeedai than in taking them alive.  
  
  
She stifled a sigh of irritation as she presented her wrist to   
the sensor, thinking of how her villips would be pulsing with   
messages from the research teams, all demanding more resources   
and her particular attention. As the chief shaper in this damutek of   
heretics, it fell to her to manage all the projects within. Nen Yim   
had no taste for administration, she was no intendant, she preferred   
the ground-level research and development.  
  
"I thought you'd never get here." A voice greeted them as   
the door irised open. Onimi stood at a table, fingering some   
specimen bulbs. The jester didn't even bother to look up as he   
spoke. "Dear, dear shaper, why do you leave me to cool my heels   
for so long?"  
  
"What is the meaning of this?" Suung Aruh slid past Nen   
Yim and strode into the room to confront Onimi. "This is Master   
Shaper Nen Yim's laboratory, forbidden to all but shapers, how did   
you gain admittance?" He demanded.  
  
(Because he is one of lord Shimrra's operatives,) was Nen   
Yim's answering thought, (no door is closed to him.) Being   
around the deformed jester always made her uncomfortable. That   
feeling was not allieved when she recognized the bulbs he was   
toying with.  
  
The jester lifted his head and regarded her with those   
misaligned eyes of his. Onimi's twisted mouth made something   
close to a smile as he rolled one bulb along the back of his hand.   
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't eager to see me." He   
feigned a wounded tone.  
  
"Did you hear me?" The adept snapped. He was now less   
than an arm's length away from the jester. "You will explain   
yourself or I-"  
  
"Send this noise-maker away." Onimi said to Nen Yim,   
ignoring Suung Aruh altogether. "When I have need of a footstool   
you can summon him again." It was a private joke that the adept   
missed: he didn't know Onimi had posed as Kae Kwaad on the   
dying worldship Baanu Miir. The remark still left him red-faced   
and sputtering.  
  
"Suung Aruh, go to Col Rammok and tell him I will join   
him soon." Nen Yim said.  
  
He glanced at her. "Master-?"  
  
"You are dismissed." She said calmly. The adept was   
within Onimi's reach, and the jester wasn't disabled in the least,   
despite his deformities. Indeed, quite the opposite, and if Suung   
Aruh continued to annoy the Onimi the jester would make him   
dead before he hit the floor. Nen Yim could ill afford to lose such   
a skilled aid.  
  
Suung Aruh cast a final glare at Onimi, genuflected to Nen   
Yim and left.  
  
"Alone at last, my pretty Nen Tsup." Onimi crooned when   
the door clamped shut.  
  
"I'll thank you not to call me that." Nen Yim replied   
coldly, every inch the master shaper, though her head was   
pounding in fear: he had stopped rolling the bulb along his hand   
and was now spinning it on one finger! "Put that down." She   
spoke as if the container held nothing of great value. "You could   
have used the villip if you needed to speak to me."  
  
"But dear Nen Tsup, we see so little of each other these   
days." Onimi was rolling the bulb down the length of his entire   
forearm now, from the tips of his fingers to his elbow, then back to   
fingertips. He walked around the table as he played with the bulb,   
holding the other three in his free hand. "I so look forward to   
surprising you."  
  
"If you have a message from lord Shimrra, I'll hear it now."   
Nen Yim crossed her arms to keep her hands from shaking and   
fought the urge to bolt. If one of those bulbs should break...  
  
"Can't I pay a simple social call?" He misjudged and the   
bulb rolled over his fingertips and arced through the air. Nen   
Yim's maa'its bulged and she felt her stomach give birth to a   
scream that shot up her throat. Onimi caught the bulb without   
even looking at it, then tossed it into the air, followed by another,   
then another. Before Nen Yim's horrified maa'its he began   
juggling them!  
  
"Put those DOWN!" She tried to grab one of the bulbs   
from the air, but Onimi danced backward and jumped onto a table,   
then he began to dance and caper as he juggled, his movements   
sure and agile despite his twisted back and shoulders. He laughed.   
Laughed at her.  
  
"STOP IT!" Nen Yim was so angry she forgot to be   
terrified. For a second the jester's image dissolved into a   
confusing blur of cells interacting with each other in the air before   
her. She refocused her maa'its: they had just been implanted and   
occasionally slipped into other modes of sight when she was   
stressed. She was tempted to stomp her feet like a petulant child.   
And Onimi stopped dancing and caught the bulbs.  
  
"No need to shout, Nen Tsup." He hopped down to the   
floor and set the bulbs on the table.  
  
Blood was pounding in Nen Yim's ears. Every encounter   
she had with Onimi was like this, though not usually so hazardous:   
the jester never missed a chance to attack her dignity.   
Unfortunately these encounters where more often than she would   
have liked, as he often bore instructions from the supreme   
overlord.  
  
She would like to report this behavior, but who to? Onimi   
answered to Shimrra alone. What was she to do: request an   
audience, go before that godlike being and say "Your jester is   
bothering me."? Impossible.  
  
And who could say he would even take her side? Onimi   
had almost daily access to the supreme overlord, while Nen Yim   
had spoken to him directly a total of two times. Their   
communications consisted of her sending him reports of the   
research projects every cycle or two by villip, so the overlord could   
decide which had priority and what sort of weaponry or defenses   
were needed for the war.  
  
"I'll shout if it pleases me to shout." She ground her teeth.   
"We're not on Baanu Miir anymore, I don't have to jump when you   
snap your fingers."  
  
Onimi tilted his misshaped head to one side and leaned   
against a wall. "Why such a cold shoulder? You seemed   
interested in establishing a...closer...relationship on the worldship.   
As I thought: you're a tease."  
  
Nen Yim's face heated. That was true, but she'd had to use   
any means available to her to restore the dying rikyam, including   
attempting to seduce Kae Kwaad. Besides, she'd intended for him   
to die as soon as she had the knowledge she needed, and certainly   
she would never have tried such a tactic if she had known he   
was...what he was.  
  
"Well if you insist, so be it: all business." Onimi stepped   
away from the wall and some of his apparent cheer vanished. "I   
bring a message from lord Shimrra, and a gift." He was still   
smiling, but there was something sickly and false about it, as if he   
were suffering from a bad wound but refusing to let the pain show.   
But that didn't make since: he was obviously unhurt.  
  
"Go on." She prompted.  
  
"Lord Shimrra wishes you to know he is aware of a certain   
plan you're hatching." In a single, fluid motion he reached out and   
gathered up all four specimen bulbs from where he had lain them.   
"He is not pleased."  
  
"What plan is that?" Nen Yim asked with apparent   
nonchalance. No, he couldn't tell her to stop: she had the right!  
  
"That you have rediscovered Mezhan Kwaad's formula for   
putting the marks of a shamed one on a true-caste Yuuzhan Vong."   
He tossed the container and caught it with one hand. "That you   
intend these bulbs to find their way to the Baanu Raas. That   
you've prepared Qah cells to implant in a shamed one to be   
transferred there in a labor group, instructing him to release the   
contents in the presence of Master Yal Phaath and his new   
apprentice, the Adept Tsun." He showed his teeth. "That plan."  
  
"What does it matter?" Nen Yim snapped. "Yal Phaath is a   
backwards fool, and Tsun has all the skill of a blind grutchin!"   
Bitterness colored her tone with that last phrase. She'd heard Tsun   
had been raised to adept-level: his reward for deceiving and   
betraying her on Yavin IV. "They're no great loss." and they were   
two of the hated five.  
  
Five beings had been responsible for Mezhan Kwaad's   
downfall and death. Anakin Solo, Tahiri, Vua Rapuung, Yal   
Phaath and Tsun. Five, and herself, by her own foolish naivety,   
but she would make up for it. She would. So she told herself   
every night, when Mezhan Kwaad's accusing eyes tormented her   
dreams.  
  
Vua Rapuung was beyond her reach, as were the two   
Jeedai, at least temporarily, but not so with Yal Phaath and Tsun,   
that bastard get of Yun Harla. What better revenge than to destroy   
them using one of her master's own weapons?  
  
"It matters, Nen Tsup, because Yal Phaath serves in his   
own way, and lord Shimrra wants nothing to interfere with the   
voxyn project."  
  
"Nothing will interfere with it." Nen Yim pressed.   
"Someone else will just head the project. Most of the development   
is already finished, there labs there do nothing but reproduction.   
Any shaper could oversee that."  
  
Onimi shook his head. "The supreme overlord has been   
very generous with you, Nen Tsup. Perhaps too generous." Nen   
Yim had to agree, she had her own damutek, almost unlimited   
resources, lord Shimrra had even complied with her request and   
transferred Suung Aruh and the other shapers of the Baanu Miir to   
this special project, as well as many of that dying worldship's   
residence for the labor and maintenance teams.  
  
"He is becoming concerned that you may have too high an   
opinion of your own worth." Onimi continued, the sarcastic edge   
had left his voice, which was now strangely gentle. "The same was   
true of Mezhan Kwaad, in the end. She forgot that while she was a   
favored servant of the gods, she was still only a servant.  
  
"The supreme overlord does not want a repeat of Mezhan   
Kwaad's mistakes. Her personal grudge against Vua Rapuung was   
damaging to her own work and to the war in general. She took   
him out of the battlefield, where he was useful, and put him into   
the slave pens, where he did us all great harm. You don't know   
how badly this affected the warriors' morale: seeing the gods   
seemingly turn their backs on such a great commander. Even   
worse, it contributed to the Jeedai heresy our shamed ones are so   
fond of. Lord Shimrra commands you to set aside all such   
personal animosities." He turned and tossed the bulbs into a wall-  
mounted disposal.  
  
"No!" Nen Yim started forward, but it was too late. Onimi   
pressed the touch-pad on the wall and the creature's mouth   
clamped shut. The temperature within the disposal would now   
increase until the bulbs and their contents had vanished. The   
shaper glared at him, but for once Onimi didn't mock her with a   
ready jibe. "You've delivered your message," she said, "you may   
go now."  
  
"Not yet, Nen Tsup." Onimi crossed the room to a supply   
closet. "You forget, I bear a message (and) a gift." He reached   
for the pad, then hesitated and looked back at her. He had that   
expression again, as though something caused him pain. He   
touched the pad and the door opened.  
  
Mezhan Kwaad stood inside.  
  
Nen Yim's knees were watery, her vision swam as the   
Maa'its shifted through half a dozen sight modes. She opened her   
mouth to say "Master," but no sound emerged.  
  
"Come out, Mezhan." Onimi said. "Come out. Come out   
here." He repeated the phrase as though to a half-trained pet.   
Mezhan Kwaad shuffled out into the lab. Her face was dead,   
expressionless, her eyes blank. A line of discolored skin circled   
her neck where her head had been reattached. Her master hand   
was gone, in its place was a simple claw-clamp: she wouldn't   
know how to use a more sophisticated creature.  
  
Nen Yim understood immediately, and her mind recoiled   
from the knowledge. Her legs went numb, she was falling. Then   
Onimi was at her side, help her down to a chair. Nen Yim's   
maa'its regained their focus. She saw him and pulled away,   
seating herself.  
  
Onimi turned away, wincing as though he'd been struck.  
  
"How?" She swallowed. "Why?"  
  
"Lord Shimrra ordered her body preserved and sent to him   
the moment reinforcements arrived on Yavin IV." The jester said.   
"He authorized the Protocol of Yu'muur."  
  
Mezhan Kwaad had stopped moving a few steps into the   
room. Eyes that had once shone with intelligence now stared   
vacantly at nothing. The Protocol of Yu'muur was accounted one   
step away from blasphemy: taking back a life that had been given   
to the gods. Only a supreme overlord could command its use, and   
only in the most extreme of circumstances, when it was crucial to   
the Yuuzhan Vong that a recently-killed individual have a second   
chance at life. But if the corpse was damaged, if decay had   
touched the brain, then what was brought back was little more than   
a living machine.  
  
"Lord Shimrra decreed her life was not worthy of the gods,   
that she had profaned her mission with her arrogance. She is to be   
your new lab assistant, she's fit to fetch and carry things for you,   
but not much else." Onimi said. "This is her punishment, and your   
warning."  
  
"My warning?" Nen Yim repeated dully, unable to tear her   
maa'its from her former master.  
  
"Mezhan Kwaad was once lord Shimrra's favored shaper,   
now you stand in her place." He grimaced. "Continue to follow   
your own agenda and you could very easily have her current   
position." He made to leave, then paused beside her.  
  
"Do what lord Shimrra says." He spoke gently. "Prove   
yourself and he may allow you to kill her one day." He departed   
then, leaving Nen Yim with those dead eyes that would stare at her   
whether she woke or slept.  
  
***************************  
The hall was vast, the vaunted ceiling lost in shadow,   
occasionally lit by the color-shifting wings of the rainbow Quaana   
as they perched among the high columns and sang, accompanied   
by the instrumentation of their wings, the drum-beats of their limbs   
pounding against their own bodies and the whistle of air through   
the pipework of their beaked mouths.  
  
The single occupant of the hall, a figure seated atop a   
pulsing dias, shrouded in shadow, leaned back his head and closed   
his shimmering maa'its. The acoustics in the chamber were   
perfect for music, and the Quaana were just concluding a   
particularly glorious song: the epic tale of Yo'gand. The song was   
reaching its climax: Yo'gand was making his Final Sacrifice to end   
the Cremlevian Wars and unite all castes and domains forever.  
  
Shimrra let the music wash over him. Triumphant but   
mournful, with a bittersweet tang that haunted the soul. It was so   
beautiful he found himself reaching out with his modified hand to   
try and catch the music before if vanished.  
  
He sighed as the Quaana wound down their song.   
They were fine singers, and they were also his last line of defense:   
in a case of dire need, he need only utter a single word and the   
Quaana would fly down from their perches and make everyone in   
the throne room save Shimrra himself very, very dead.  
  
He turned his thoughts back to the problems at hand. Since   
the destruction of the Sernpidal worldship it was necessary to   
separate out the Yuuzhan Vong most essential to the war effort for   
transport from the dying worldships. It was a bothersome   
distraction from more important matters, such as the invasion of   
Coruscant. Shimrra briefly considered putting the Peace Brigade   
to work transporting the worldship inhabitants to some reclaimed   
planets. The infidel allies easily had enough ships for the task,   
even if they were abominable machines.  
  
Shimrra weighed the value of having the worldship-bound   
Yuuzhan Vong on their new worlds, working toward victory,   
against the blow to morale that would come from making use of   
machines instead of living transport and discarded the idea. Their   
contribution just wasn't worth the cost, so let them face death like   
true Yuuzhan Vong; those worldships that could reach an occupied   
planet would have a new home. Those that could not...would not.   
The gods would decide who was worthy.  
  
He leaned his head back and felt the throne's cognition   
hood flow around his temples. Joined to his worldship's rikyam,   
he opened the qahsa and called up records of the current progress   
in producing ships, dovin basals and other war material, along with   
projected results. Prefect Drathul would be coming before him   
later this cycle, with some proposals for administering these   
planets more efficiently.  
  
Knowing Drathul, he would also include chances for him to   
increase his own power and wealth in the process. The high priest   
Jakan also wished to speak to him regarding the Jeedai heresey and   
what actions, decrees and sacrifices might induce the shamed ones   
to abandon this blasphemy. Jakan swore he would do anything to   
turn them back to the gods.  
  
"Then make them true caste, you fool." This was another   
blunder he could lay at Mezhan Kwaad's door. A pity she was   
unaware of how low she had fallen and how terrible was her   
punishment. (I must have my own Jeedai now, for no other   
reason than to counter this heresey.)  
  
Abruptly, he disengaged from the qahsa and called up his   
Eyes and Ears in the special projects damutek. He wanted Onimi   
present during these audiences: he was most useful during such   
audiences, his tumbling and capering often distracted those who   
came before Shimrra's throne, so that they slipped and said more   
than they meant to. The jester was both clever and perceptive as   
well.  
  
He had a gift for satire and could mimic scheming prefects   
and pompous priests with a wit so sharp it could draw blood.   
Often Onimi would interrupt a supplicant with a single, biting   
remark that laid all his schemes and hidden agenda's bare. He so   
loved showing up beings supposedly his betters.  
  
A wall of mist rose up before Shimrra, then a window   
opened in the heart of the mist, looking into another place. When   
he last looked in on the malformed jester he was waiting in Nen   
Yim's lab for the shaper herself to appear. Shimrra was   
disappointed to see that the meeting was almost over. Nen Yim   
had been presented her 'gift' and Onimi was leaving the laboratory.   
He spoke a command and a second window opened beside the   
first, so he might view the images and sounds recorded in the lab.  
  
Shimrra steepled his fingers as he watched. When he saw   
Onimi cast a last, longing look back at Nen Yim before the door   
clamped shut, he smiled.  
  
***********************************************  
In his chambers aboard the living vessel taking him back to   
Shimrra's worldship palace, Onimi honed a coufee until the edge   
was sharp enough to split skin with a touch. He tested it with his   
finger and watched the blood run down his hand.  
  
He drew a crimson mark on his forehead before the cut closed, the symbol of   
a domain that had disowned him. His brother would probably   
have it scrubbed away when they found Onimi's corpse, and the   
crew who saw it would doubtless be sacrificed to keep them silent.   
Onimi hoped so. He hated them, as he hated all who were born   
whole and well-formed in the gods' eyes.  
  
He looked to the coufee. It was clean: the living blade had   
already drank the blood that had touched it. "You don't reject me,   
at least." Onimi gave a sardonic smile. "You may even appreciate   
me, in your own way. Well, take your nourishment."  
  
His thoughts turned to Nen Yim, as they often did. His   
sweet Nen Tsup, she had no idea how close he was to breaking   
those specimen bulbs. Nen Yim a shamed one: who would want   
her then? Not Suung Aruh, that pet of hers who followed her   
around like a loyal bruz toy and cast her loving looks when she   
wasn't looking. No one would. No one but Onimi. She would   
even be blind when her maa'its rotted and fell out, so she might   
even grow to care for him if she didn't have to look at his face.  
  
Onimi had wanted to break those bulbs and release the   
toxins inside. He'd decided to, intended to, been about to, only   
to look at her and find that he just couldn't. That was the cruelest   
joke of all, and as a jester he appreciated it fully.  
  
Onimi balanced the knife on the palm of his hand. It was   
traditional to pray to the gods before offering sacrifice. He smiled.   
"You've cursed me since the day I was born, and every time I   
thought things couldn't be worse you produced a fresh torment. I   
could've done this years ago, but I decided to live just to spite you   
all. Now you've finally found the one torture I can't endure." He   
tossed the coufee, watched it spin, then caught it. "My thoughts   
are drops of blood, pooling at my feet. My every thought a   
sacrifice. No more. Let someone else feed you with their pain,   
you've had enough of me."  
  
He was eager to look on those gods that had seen fit to do   
this to him. Yun Yuuzhan, Yun Shuno, Yun Harla, Yun Txiin and   
Yun Q'aah especially. Perhaps he would hack a few more pieces   
off them, create some supernovas and give birth to a couple of   
solar system full of creatures. "Now, comes the reckoning." He   
placed the tip of the blade over his stomach.  
  
A shadow formed in the cabin, coming from nowhere and   
filling up the room like a searchlight in reverse, sucking in light   
instead of projecting it. Two shimmering eyes gleamed in its   
heart.  
  
"The gift was received well?" Came Shimrra's whispered   
voice.  
  
"That was cruel, what you did." Onimi turned his head   
toward the patch of night. "Needlessly cruel."  
  
"And cruel to make you deliver the news." Shimrra   
responded. "No matter how liberally to used my name as the chief   
shaper in this, Nen Yim will always remember you as the bearer of   
her punishment. If ever there was a chance she would look with   
favor on you, it is gone forever."  
  
Onimi didn't ask how Shimrra had guessed his feelings: the   
supreme overlord wasn't a fool. "The gods alone know how much   
I hate you." He could say things like that when they were alone, he   
had the right: if Shimrra's flesh was sacred then so was Onimi's,   
they shared the same being.  
  
"I think I can imagine that hate." Shimrra said. "Your face   
is dirty, Onimi. Clean that mark from your forehead and prepare   
yourself. I wish your presence during an audience."  
  
"My apologies, but I have a prior appointment." He   
gestured with the coufee.  
  
"I did not give you permission."  
  
"I did not ask for it."  
  
"Onimi," Shimrra shook his head, his maa'its shimmered   
from red to purple to green, "you know the gods hate a coward."  
  
"They hate me already." Onimi snapped. "And how am I a   
coward?"  
  
"You are running from pain rather than embracing it."  
  
"Pain?" He threw back his head and laughed. "What do   
you know of pain? What do any of you? The warriors put a few   
scars on themselves, hack off a limb or two and are showered with   
glory. Ha!" Onimi rammed his fist into the wall. "Let me tell you   
what a real sacrifice is. It is having a thousand scars that no one   
will ever see and wonder over," he tapped his chest, "it is being   
low, despised and mocked. Real pain is being so close to-" his   
throat hitched "-what you want most in the world and knowing you   
can never have it." He lay the edge of the blade against his throat.   
"How do you suffer? You speak of sacrifices, well brother,   
what sacrifices do you make?"  
  
He tightened his grip on the hilt, but something held him   
back. There was one question he wanted answered before he died.   
And now was his last chance.  
  
"Do you want me to behave? To come back and play the fool   
for you some more? Then tell me why. Why did you let me live   
and why do you keep me alive? Tell me or I'll seek my answers   
among the gods."  
  
Onimi glared at Shimrra, imagining the so-familiar face behind the shadows. Onimi   
would have been given back to the gods at birth and spared a   
miserable life had the law not decreed only one hand could slay   
him. So, as it was ordained, he was separated from the other-that-  
was-he, trained in the arts of war, of politics and administration, of   
religion and the mysteries of shaping, his teachers never hiding their  
disgust of him. Then at his fifteenth naming-day he was reunited with his twin.  
  
Onimi had cast away his coufee without offering battle and   
knelt before Shimrra, as was expected: all his life his teachers had made  
it clear to him that he was inferior, a mistake. His last sight would  
be his own face and form, free of deformity and perfect in the eyes of gods and   
Yuuzhan Vong.  
  
Shimrra had watched Onimi with unreadable eyes, raised   
his own coufee, then opened his hand to let the blade clatter to the   
floor. He then made his first decree as supreme overlord and had   
rewritten history. All the official records would say his twin, his   
perfectly normal twin, had perished in combat, as was ordained. It was   
easy enough to manage: both of them had been raised in seclusion.   
As for Onimi himself, Shimrra found a place for him.  
  
For a long moment Shimrra was silent, and it seemed   
Onimi would die without his answer. Then the shadow spoke.  
  
"I wanted to kill you that day we were brought together for   
the second time. I looked down at you and saw myself, twisted   
and malformed, and rage tore at me. Yet in the midst of it I heard   
a voice, commanding me to stay my hand. It was the first time   
Yun Yuuzhan spoke to me, Onimi, and he said you must not die,   
that there was a service you had yet to perform for them."  
  
He folded his hands and spoke in a calm, soft voice. "Since   
then not a cycle has passed that I have not looked upon you at least   
once, and seen the wretched thing I might have been, that is as   
much a part of me as my own flesh, and every time I look at you I   
feel swarm of grutchin tearing me apart. Perhaps Yun Yuuzhan   
means to keep me humble." Shimrra tilted his head. "So you see,   
Onimi. You are my sacrifice." The shadow began to fade.   
"Clean my mark from your face and ready yourself. I'll expect you   
in my throne room in one quarter of a cycle." 


End file.
